Clay Stonehenges, North Olmstead, Ohio

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photos from promotional website for Hawkes Nest in Affalon

Found someone in Ohio who is making clay Stonehenge replicas, either as it was when complete or as it is now. stonehenge01p They offer them at a modest price. Each is about 8 inches across.

We wonder how many they’ve sold. This sort of thing is dangerous. Before you know it, these seemingly insignificant items could infect the minds of Ohioans and send them into a henge-building frenzy! It’s especially risky in Ohio, where the land has already generated some henge-like structures.

These little models are surprisingly accurate. We see bluestones, trilithons, including the inner horseshoe. We see the so called altar stone. It does look a little claymation, but not bad! Score: 7 druids for the N. Olmstead replicas.

Okay, we know we said we were quitting, but there are still replicas out there to post, so you can expect it once in a while!

Fairy Stonehenge, another garden variation

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photo by Merissa Barcomb, with permission [as with all pictures here, do not use without getting your own permissions!]

Down at the foot of the garden/ Hidden from everyone’s view/ There do the elves and the fairies/ Dance amidst blossoms and dew./ There, when the dusk has just fallen,/ Spells o’er the stones do they weave/ Until a small Stonehenge they’ve fashioned/ To loom in the glimmering eve.

Or some such. You know the drill. This is actually a charming little garden henge. As with so many, it is just a set of trilithons, which takes its score down a bit, but it certainly has ambience and possibly a gauze over the camera lens.

Score: 6 druids or 7 fairies. A nice post for the spring season!

On another note, we regret to say that Clonehenge may be winding down. Of course we will continue to post new henges that are sent to us or that we stumble upon, but the long hours of internet searching are no longer paying off. Many requests for photo permissions are still out there and if they do come in, we will post them. Also, if you’ve sent us one and we somehow forgot to post it, please get in touch!

While our days of regular posting appear to be over, roughly 5 months after we began, we are still here, so do email or comment if you have any communication for us. See you around the web!

Cakehenge, Done Right!

cakehenge and photo by ~Ren-sama, with permission

There are cakehenges and then there are cakehenges. We have seen a few, but this one takes . . . never mind. You know what we mean. In most cases, as with the cupcake henge we posted not long ago, there’s a cake base with the replica on top made of candy or lady fingers or something. But ~Ren-Sama actually baked the cake stones separately and then assembled and iced them. The deviantART page says, “Five days of baking, five hours of construction.This turned out better than my wildest dreams.”

It certainly gets the Clonehenge seal of approval! That’s a lot of work to go to, and we see inner trilithons, fallen stones, possibly the right number of lintels . . . We have thought for a while that a clever bread baker could bake separate stones and make a very good replica, and this is the closest we’ve seen to that.

Score: 6½ druids! Bravo, ~Ren-sama! More, please!

Stonehenge in the Water, Cumbria

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photo by skittzitilby, with permission

We’ve said before that there are many Stonehenges made of small stones out there, and we just want to post a few of the best. We find this one charming, not only for its delicate form and the photo’s deep colours. It has a story.

Skittzitilby says, “it was made for me by my fella when he came up from the Bristol area after living 30+years of his life down there—-it was his romantic present to me showing me he loves it so much up here in Cumbria with me that he made me my own.” It looks like Skittzitilby has a pretty nice set of trilithons!

We can’t help but think this is a great precedent–showing one’s love by building a Stonehenge replica for the beloved. Maybe it will catch on! A man could try to charm a woman (or vice versa, or men charm men or women charm women–we are an equal opportunity blog!) by building an especially elaborate or meticulously correct model, depending on the other’s preferences. “What kind of Stonehenge did he (or she) build you?” people would ask one another. Or couples could build them together making distinctive replicas that would demonstrate by the ways they were unique, the personality of the couple!

Many possibilities! Score for the Stonehenge of Love, 6½ druids. More love and more replicas, people. But if it has to be just one, then, okay: make more love!

Sponge Sculpture Stonehenge

piece of the HIT Entertainment web page on Sponge Sculptures

Found this bit and had to pass it on. Click on the link above or the picture to see full instructions on how to do sponge sculptures. We agree with them: if you’re learning sculpture, why wouldn’t it be Stonehenge or and Easter Island head you started out with? Or preferably both!

It’s a nice little model they have there. We would give it 6 druids at first glance. After all, doesn’t everyone want a Spongehenge?! If you decide to make one, please keep us in mind! Hint: how about rainbow colours?

Former Fountain Henge, Warwick Uni, England

photo by Nick Howes, aka Jimmy Dustpan, with permission

The photographer’s explanation is that it was a fountain originally, “But since the water stopped it became just been a rather sad pile of rocks. As it’s a University campus it was only a matter of time before some students decided to repurpose it as a mini Stonehenge.” Interestingly put: ” . . . it was only a matter of time“? How many people would see it that way, besides us?

Look at it. The Stonehenge someone builds shows what Stonehenge is to him, and who he is. Sam Hill created a monument to soldiers. The astronomer builds an observatory. The clockmaker builds a timepiece. The artist makes a sculpture. The engineer grapples with method. The Stonehenge-obsessed creates a meticulous model. The gardener makes a folly. The pagan crafts a ritual space. The playful person creates a whimsy. Spinal Tap fans make little trilithons. Ahem. And so on.

That’s the reason for this blog. By looking at these replicas, we get a glimpse of what Stonehenge looks like to, or what it represents to, their creators. The answer to the question, “what is it about Stonehenge that has such a hold on people?” begins to look like “many things!” As with a Rorschach inkblot test, what we see in Stonehenge arises from who we are, and like a lake it draws our attention with its reflective quality.

Score: 5 druids. More proof that Stonehenge is a creature that reproduces by infecting minds!

Sky Project Stonehenge Model

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photos from Digital History Wiki page, by Creative Commons license

This small replica was part of a project aimed at better understanding how people interact with presentations of historical subjects, one of a group of projects done under the tutelage of William J. Turkel of the University of Western Ontario. Note the computer monitors also showing Stonehenge.

stonehenge-model This made us think it would be great to set up computer monitors in a circle with a nice Stonehenge model in the middle, and have them all showing Stonehenge, constantly rotating. But back to the study, the conclusion arrived at here was that people are impatient and easily distracted, and, extrapolating, it’s difficult to teach us anything. Duh!

This is a nice little model, though, and we award it 6 druids. We want to add a couple of links to photos of small models we can’t get permissions for. Here is an early model, from the late 1800’s or early 1900’s (scroll down on that page, and note the other model in the background). And here is a very clean well-done model from the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, photo taken in 1964.

Clearly people have gone to great lengths to make these models accurate to their idea of what Stonehenge is or was. What is this hold it has on us? We’re four months into Clonehenge now, and we still don’t have an answer for that!

Stonehedge Gardens, Tamaqua, Pennsylvania

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photos from the Stonehedge Gardens website

This one isn’t really hengy enough. Still, its name is worth discussing and outdoor stone replicas are getting harder for us to find. Our searches meet with diminishing returns, although, truth to tell, we did find two today that we hope to post in the future!

stonehedge21 The site says: “The mission of Stonehedge Gardens is to provide a healing, sacred, inclusive environment for the cultivation of personal and community transformation and wellness through the gardens and nature, the arts and holistic education.” The gardens are said to be beautiful, but why Stonehedge? Perhaps to meld the spiritual implications of Stonehenge with the garden word hedge. We do think they spelled it that way on purpose, unlike some. (See the 3rd comment below for the real explanation.)

Stonehedge is the most common misspelling of Stonehenge, surpassing Stongehenge and Stonhenge. And there are others: Stongehedge, Stonhedge and the obvious Stone Henge. The internet has created an age when researchers must find all possible misspellings of their key words.

The benches here are meant to gently suggest a Stonehenge theme, not form a Stonehenge replica. It wouldn’t be fair to score them. We just wanted to discuss their name. Shame on us! Out of guilt, we’ll throw a handful of druids their way. Score: 5 druids. All this reminds us of a cartoon: [link]. Gardening time is upon us, folks–time to build your henges!

3D Paper Model Stonehenge (and a small mystery solved)

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photo from Paper Landmarks promotional webpage

We may not get to post for a day or two, so a quick post this morning. You may remember some time ago we posted a page of links to replicas we didn’t have photo permissions for, Henges We Admire. One of them was a neatly done model of Stonehenge in its original state, which we thought was of wood. It now appears that it may have been of paper, made from this kit. (For those who might enjoy horrifying the Clonehenge blog, this company also sells kits for Easter Island heads to add to your Stonehenge display!)

Of course, we aren’t looking at anything like the stone-by-stone detail of the Cardboard Stonehenge kit shown on the Cardboard Stonehenge blog, a great read featured here earlier. At the other end of the spectrum is this (to us) humourous item, in which you just cut out all but the base of the ‘stones’ and stand them up, made by a company with the evocative name L’Instant Durable. Ah, if only it were!

Still, this is an impressive model and if we’d had one we might have kept busy making it and avoided the embarrassment of starting Clonehenge. Alas for the world–one annoyance that might so easily have been averted!

Paper Landmarks‘ Stonehenge score: 7½ druids. Note that you can get it in several colours including gold, although why you wouldn’t choose the stone colour is beyond us. Unless you were just going to set it on fire anyway. In that case, do it safely! And send us pictures!

Stonehenge Under Glass

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photo and mini-replica from dewgardencrafts on Etsy, with permission

It’s like a little herd of Stonehenge on a hill! You can almost imagine tiny mysterious druids that only come out when you’re not around and put up megaliths. Awesome! This item threatens the Taipei Stonehenge sculpture‘s claim to the Cutest Stonehenge title.

terrarium-23 The terrarium in the photo above, sadly, has been sold. The one to the left, however, is still for sale on Etsy, “the place to buy and sell things handmade”, as are others, including the less poetic but intriguingly-named Butt Crack Terrarium . . . Oops! We’re too easily distracted. Let’s stick with Stonehenge replicas and let others blog the butt cracks!

These mossy models are in some ways preferable to many of the more complete and accurate small replicas. The moss implies the charm of the landscape, the essential Stonehenge factor so often overlooked by replica makers, especially those on the left side of the Atlantic. As much as it has been co-opted by astronomers, Stonehenge wasn’t just about the sky–at least that’s our opinion, if we’re allowed one.

And now we have some scoring to do. Score: 6 druids. It may not be accurate, but gosh darn it, we like it, and we can do whatever we want. It’s our blog!

CLONEHENGE

A blog about Stonehenge Replicas. We kid you not.

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